Adjaye shares legal letters on sex accusations with Ghana government, letters leaked to local media
Names of the three women accusing global architecture star David Adjaye of sexual assault and emotional abuse, have been leaked to some news outlets in Ghana, the Financial Times (FT) has reported.
Two Ghanaian news outlets published stories with the names of the three women who have made the accusations. According to the FT, Adjaye admitted sharing the legal letters with the Ghana government, but the president’s executive secretary, Nana Bediatuo Asante has denied that the government officially leaked the letters to the media houses.
Asante told the FT that when they (government) heard the news of the scandal, they asked Adjaye for clarification and he shared the legal letters with them, but it was leaked to some local media who published the names of the accusers.
The FT suggests that Adjaye shared the letters with the Ghana government in efforts to save his reputation.
“The legal correspondence was disclosed on a strictly confidential basis to a client in order to better understand and assess the ongoing situation. Extremely regrettably, this correspondence was disclosed [to the media],” Adjaye said in a statement.
The FT quoted The Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAFF), the whistleblowing organisation representing the women, saying: “The women are whistleblowers who chose to be anonymous for safety reasons. Disclosing names is a tool all too often used to retaliate and has a chilling effect on others who want to come forward.”
Adjaye has since the story of the scandal broke, stepped down from a series of high-profile roles and projects so the allegations do “not become a distraction”.
He has removed himself from a project to design the UK’s Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre and given up a trusteeship of the Serpentine Galleries and a role as an adviser to London mayor Sadiq Khan. The Studio Museum in Harlem, Manhattan, is cutting ties with him, according to the New York Times.
Adjaye however, remains the designer of Ghana’s National Cathedral.
“I accept that sharing the correspondence with the client [the Ghanaian government] was unwise, but there was never any intention that it should become public,” said Adjaye. “As soon as I became aware of the article, I immediately instructed lawyers to take urgent steps to ensure that the identities of the women were removed immediately and that the article was taken down.”
The FT published an investigation this week in which three women formerly employed by Adjaye accused him of different forms of exploitation, from sexual assault and harassment to emotional abuse.
Adjaye has put up a spirited denial of all the allegations. His lawyers have described the incidents as ‘consensual’.